My name is Ben and I am a German teacher at the School of Languages in Adelaide, South Australia. I've been lucky enough to win a scholarship allowing me to study German for a month in Mannheim and explore opportunities for future student study tours and sister school relationships. This blog is about those explorations and the scholarship experience in general.
I am heading home tomorrow morning, so this blog is now done. If you wish to contact me, you can do that on the contact page. If you would like a quick reference, just have a look down the right hand side of the page to see my recommendations. Also, please remember that you are reading this blog from end-to-beginning. So if you are actually planning your own trip to this neck of the woods, then perhaps go to the end and read it backwards.
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Heidelberg is just a fantastic place to be. It is amazing in its own right, but it is also just so well connected to so many amazing places at really reasonable rates on the S-Bahn network. You have little towns like Speyer, with its Cathedral and Technology Museum and Schwetzingen with its amazing palace and gardens. You have bigger cities such as Mannheim only 15 minutes away, and you have so many beautiful countryside villages that are accessible by boat, bike and even on foot. NeckarsteigThere is the Nekarsteig, which is a walk/bike trail that goes from Heidelberg to Bad Wimpfen. That is a 128km trail through the mountains, wineries and villages of the Neckar Valley. Neuberger AbbeyIf you are just in for a half-day walk you can cross the Neckar over to the Philosopher’s Path and turn right instead of left and head out for about 6 hours to the Benedictine Monastery in Neuberg. It is still home to about half a dozen Benedictine Monks, but there are many places you can go to look around. Then you can head down to the Neckar and come back to Heidelberg by ship to top your day off. Neckartal RadwegIf you have some serious time on your hands then you might like to hit the Neckartal-Radweg (Neckar Valley Bike path) for a 366km bike ride along the banks of the Neckar River from Villingen-Schwenningen to Ludwigshafen.
On top of that you have the Weisse Flotte Heidelberg, which will take you anywhere tou want to go, as long as you want to go there by boat. Heidelberg is the city where I would like to begin a German Study Tour. It is exquisitely beautiful, well located, culture rich and wonderfully connected to hundreds of cool places. Heidelberg was one of the most prominent cities to have escaped WWII almost unscathed by bombing raids. Locals in Heidelberg will tell you that the Americans wanted to preserve it so that they could set up their occupation base there after the war. The truth is probably closer to the fact that it was of no commercial or industrial significance and the Americans set up there because it was still intact after the war. But all of that brings us to the point that Heidelberg has not been rebuilt, it stands in all its majestic glory almost exactly as it has done for the last 470 years (470 years ago it was razed to the ground in the 30 years’ war with the French). The first thing you see in Heidelberg is the castle. You can take a train up to the castle in good weather, otherwise there is a bus and they are both free. On the other hand you can also walk up. It only takes about 10 minutes from the city, but it is quite steep. The castle is gorgeous and contains an old apothecary and massive gardens. Tours of the castle are hourly and it is €8 for adults and €4 for kids. A visit to the University is a must. The university has some amazing old lecture halls, a huge and inexpensive canteen and an old student prison. The for 500 years the university had its own laws and legal system and that students could be arrested for any old thing that one gets arrested for, singing too loud in the wet mess, running naked through the gardens during Fasching, you know … the usual. Reports are that the prison was a fairly cosy place to be and that students would sometimes get themselves arrested to avoid exams or just because their mates had been arrested. The Kurpfälzisches Museum has an extensive collection of art, handcrafted items and assorted articles from Heidelberg’s history and is surely worth a look. As is the Körperwelten (Body Worlds) Museum (click here to see the website) https://bodyworlds.com/exhibition/heidelberg/ One thing that you cannot miss in Heidelberg is the Philosopher’s Walk. From the old Cathedral, head over the bridge, across the river and straight up the hill. It takes about an hour and offers unparalleled views of Heidelberg and the castle. I missed it this time as I got half way across the bridge and, for the first time in 4 weeks, I just said ‘it’s too cold here, I need to get inside. It doesn’t happen to me often, but I had just spent about an hour and a half in -4*c walking around the old Castle and its ruins, on top of a couple hours walking around town and I was just cold right down into my bones. Leave it for next time. Some people say 'isn't it amazing how time flies’. I don’t think I’ve ever said it, apart from in the context of ‘you know something I’ve never said …’. In fact the reverse is true. Whenever I give time any thought at all, I often feel ‘whoa! How did we manage to pack all that in there!’ I felt that again last weekend when I spent the weekend with my host family from my German exchange, 1990/91. I understand that it was a long time ago, but it does not ‘seem like just yesterday’ or any of those other clichés. We started talking about all of the things we have done since we first met 28 years ago, I started to feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes since then. It was amazing. We’ve caught up on quite a few occasions since being randomly paired by total strangers in the late 1980s, so it wasn’t a complete recount of the past 3 decades, but 2 days were not nearly enough to get it all out there nonetheless. It was one of the best weekends I’ve ever spent. Good times, good friends, catching up on their patch, in their tongue, after all this time, it’s just beautiful. If you have been lucky enough to have had this experience yourself, then you know what I mean. But if you haven’t then it is difficult to explain, you will just have to trust me on this. If you have children, and if they are at all interested, encourage them to learn a language. People will say Chinese for business, Spanish for variety, Italian if you’re Catholic, Indonesian because it’s close … It’s all true, but it’s also all irrelevant. It doesn’t matter which one they learn, just as long as they learn one (or more!). And when they do, if it is at all possible, try to provide them with the opportunity to go somewhere to live it (as opposed to vacationing in it). If that’s not an option, perhaps consider becoming a host. Learning a language in high school may not necessarily be a life changing experience, but the opportunities it affords are impossible to overstate. Last Thursday night I went to see Maximillian Gstettenbauer (it’s a strong name, I know). He is a stand-up comedian, originally from Bavaria but now living in Cologne. If you are interested in German comedy (and let’s face it, who isn’t?) the check out his weekly podcast “Gstetten Time”. Otherwise you can go to www.maxigstettenbauer.de and download his last show for as much or as little as you would like to pay for it, your choice. Maxi Gsetettenbauer is, without doubt, my favourite comedian in the world at the moment. He is funny, clever, current – but not afraid to throw in cultural references from past decades, high-brow – but not afraid of a few ‘pimmel-witze’ (as he so delicately puts it) and most of all, he is a good bloke. While his jokes run from politics to bodily functions to current affairs and back again, seamlessly and never gratuitously, his shows contain a message that we (especially us blokes) can be better. You know that Gillette commercial that the whole world is having trouble getting its head around? Kind of like that, but hilarious. To bring it to a comparison that most people (Australians, at least) will understand, I guess he could be compared to Adam Hills in many ways; with warmth, compassion and hilarity, all with an unmistakable, deeply humanist undercurrent. Looking at a two-day tour, one of the days would be the city centre where we already are. Start at the Kaufinger Straße at Karlstor (at the subway exit), and wander down the pedestrian zone. Have a look at the stores with all of the traditional Bavarian products until you get to the Asamkirche (Asam Church). Plan to spend half an hour in there, it is the most grotesque display of wealth I have ever seen. I mean it is beautiful, but it is so beautiful that it is almost impossible to enjoy in good conscience. Maybe it’s just me, but anyway, it is free and it is absolutely incredible. After you head out of the Asamkirche, you can follow the street around to the Frauenkirche. Head in there, but make sure not to tell your students the story of the Devil’s footprint before you get there. It is much more impactful to be told it in whispered tones of a church story, hunched in a semi-circle, directly on the spot of the footprint, with the simply unbelievable sight of a naturally lit, ostensibly windowless building opening up before you. After this, take the students to the Alter Peter (Old Peter’s Church) and have them climb the tower. It’s a long climb, but then you get to stand on the roof of the church up the top of the tower and see all of Munich around you. I’ve actually started with the second half of the day, because the first half of the day that I’m going to recommend is Dachau Concentration camp. Personally, I’ve not been to Dachau but I am very familiar with it as I majored in German at University and within that I undertook Studies of the Holocaust as a semester subject. I have spoken at length with the tourist information office about Dachau tours for students. They recommend taking at least 2 teachers in case students break down and need to leave. My guide said that students must be 14 to enter, and must be 17 to enter certain areas of the camp, but there are also 12+ tours available by booking. The 17+ areas contain video footage of the camp. In my university studies, I have seen footage taken by Allied Forces of the liberation and clean-up of some concentration camps. It is indescribable in words, I’m not going to try, but I remember it effects. I don’t say this to sensationalize, it is an appropriate warning. - Prepare your students for what they are about to experience. - Allow them to opt out if they think they cannot handle it. - If it is at all possible, visit by yourself before you take others so that you know how you personally will react. - Do not do Dachau as the last activity of the day. - Plan something very entertaining and distracting for the rest of the day. - Tours to Dachau are only held on Mondays and Saturdays. On the second day, head back to Kaufinger Straße and visit the Residenz (The former residence of the Wittelsback Family in Munich). Make sure you are out of there in time to catch the Glockenspiel at 11 or 12 o’clock. After that you can go to the Münchener Sadtmuseum (Museum of the history of the city of Munich) and then you can drop the students at the Viktualenmarkt and give them an hour or so free time before heading to the Hauptbahnhof and going home. If you have more time, consider BMW World and/or the Olympic Village tour. You can include abseiling down the roof of the Olympic stadium in the tour if you have the time and the money and while you are there you can go up Olympic Tower, from which you can see all of Munich and on a good day, right through to the Bavarian Alps. If you have a ridiculous amount of time, say a week, spend a day in the Deutsches Museum (German Museum of Science) and you will still only see a quarter to a third of it. Normally one would buy a three-day or a week pass to this museum alone. You could also do a day trip out to Nauschwanstein Castle, the Fantasia Castle made by Mad King Ludwig the Second at the bottom of the Bavarian Alps. You could also try a Segway tour, or if you are there with adult students there is a Munich Beer and Brewery Tour, which is very popular. The weekend was spent in Munich. What a great city. There was a thick carpet of snow everywhere we went and the smell of broth floating out of every restaurant. As you walk past you can smell the rich aromas of goulash, all kinds of winter soups, roast meats, sizzling and boiling wursts and all manner of goodness floating from every old pub, restaurant and street vendor. Principally, I was here in Munich to plan a weekend excursion for our up-coming study tour, and that did happen, but it was also great to catch up with old mates from my time in Bavaria 20 years ago and enjoy the best Munich has to offer. If you are coming to Munich with students there is an endless array of things to do. You will almost undoubtedly start in the Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station). It is a good place to start, just on the subway head just one stop to ‘Karlstor’. Tip: Check with the Bahn office, but you may be able to use your train ticket as a subway ticket also, depending on which one you have bought. That can save you some money. When you get out at Karlstor you are in the main pedestrian mall and shopping area of Munich. As you walk down the Kaufinger Straße (the pedestrian mall) you will see tourist shops selling Bavarian trinkets and loads of stores selling all manner of cool stuff, none of which you can afford. A few hundred meters down on the right hand side there is Munich’s most famous Lederhosen and Dirndl store, also very expensive but worth a look in. There are also myriad beer halls on both sides, but if you are underway with the kids, you may have to come back to enjoy what they have to offer. Tip: if you want to eat Munich Weißwurst anywhere (and you will), you have to eat it before 12pm. It used to be illegal to sell Weißwurst after 12pm before the days of refrigeration, but almost all restaurants have taken it on as a custom now and it proved devilishly hard to come by as we arrived at 12:20. As you head further down Kaufinger Straße you will come to the ‘Rathaus’ (Munich’s city hall). It is a fantastic old building with a Glockenspiel built into the tallest central spire. Tip: The Glockenspiel plays at 11am and 12pm (and only in the summer, again at 5pm). We missed it this time, but I have seen it before and I highly recommend it. The FrauenkircheAfter you have seen the Glockenspiel play through, the tourism office is just a little further down on the left. The people in there are lovely and will help you with anything you need, but you can also ring or email in advance and they will be happy to make sure you are ready to roll on arrival. Near the Rathaus you will see two tall towers belonging to the same building. Head over there and take a look inside. That is the Frauenkirche (Women’s Church, is the direct translation of its name. but I think it is called something else in the English guide books). Inside the Frauenkirche about 5 meters inside the doorway you will see a footprint embedded in the cement floor, this is called the Devil’s footprint. The story goes that the designer of the Frauenkirche (many centuries ago) set out to design a church with no windows that would be filled by the light of God from within. Short story is that the Devil made him a bet that he wouldn’t be able to do it and he took the bet on, assumedly at the risk of his eternal soul. He built the church and it had no visible windows and was nonetheless full of light seemingly impossibly coming from within the church, proving to the Devil that God loved him and the parishioners of his church. The Devil needed to see it for himself and came to Earth, entered the church and indeed saw no windows and but the inside of the church glowed with light seemingly from within. He was naturally angry to have lost the bet and, stamped his foot hard enough to break through the concrete and leave a permanent scorch-mark in the shape of his foot embedded in the ground before fleeing in a fit of rage. And that’s the story of how the Devil’s footprint came to be there. As a matter of fact, when you stand on the Devil’s footprint and look into the enormous, cavernous body of the church, you will see not a single window but nonetheless a glorious church full of natural light seemingly emanating from the walls of the church. Of course it is not the love of God that lights the church, but actually … actually I am not going to tell you. It is not miraculous in the biblical sense, but it is naturally lit and it will fill you with wonder. The RatskellerOnce we left the Frauenkirche, we moved towards the tourist office (Tip: open until 6 most days apart from Sunday). We had googled the location and it is at the bottom of the Rathaus. On the way to the tourist office, Max spied a doorway with 2 lions and an oversized bottle of Hessian wine, a type of wine which he insisted we all must try. Try as we might to persuade Max that we had other things to do, he insisted, we relented, and we all went into the Ratskeller (City Hall Cellar). None of us had been in there before, in fact none of us were even aware of its existence. As we descended staircase into the cellar, we were struck by the incredibly beautifully painted ceilings and the gorgeous old interior of the room we had entered. Apart from the electric lights and fridges, it could have been any time in the last few hundred years. At the bottom of the staircase, we saw a sign that read “If you have made a booking, please wait here to be seated. If you have not made a booking, wait here anyway. Don’t worry, we will find you a table, no matter what time, no matter how many people”. We looked around the room and saw maybe 100 seats. We exchanged a few sideways glances, we were all thinking that same thing, bollocks! We asked a waiter for this particular bottle of wine and he said ‘that way’, pointed and kept walking. We walked to the end of the room in the direction of his finger and ended up at a corridor, presumably leading to the toilets or something. We asked another waiter for a bottle of wine and she said ‘that way’ and pointed down the corridor. We asked to be seated and have the wine brought to us instead of the other way around and she said, ‘we don’t have it here, you have to go that way’, and pointed down the corridor. Unless the wine was kept in the toilets, I couldn’t see the point, but go that way we did. Walking down the corridor we saw the corridor open up into some small side rooms that were obviously restaurants, but were not open. At the end of the corridor we entered another corridor, this one with the photos of the “Wine Queen” every year since 1951 on the wall. We stared at these photos as we walked and quietly wondered what was going on. We asked another waiter for the wine and he gave us a map, pointed along the corridor and said, you guessed it, ‘that way’. A map! We were in a cellar, how big could it be that it needs a map! We looked at the map and it suddenly became clear that a map was just what we needed. Turns out that the Ratskeller, built under the Rathaus, is a series of rooms, some bigger some smaller, all connected by a winding series of corridors ending up in an 1100 seat series of restaurants which are ultimately all one restaurant, but in which different things are served in different sections. Incredible! If you are Munich you absolutely must visit it. When we finally found the section that served the particular wine Max wanted us all to try, I think we had probably walked 300m or more and passed at least 15 ‘restaurants’. But find the wine we did, and as we sat down to try it, the waiter recommended a plate of the local delicacies that pair very well with the wine. We relented and ordered that, too. When it came out it was a plate of a series of slices of thick, dark Bavarian bread. Each slice of bread had a different topping, and the various toppings included, but were not limited to raw pork mice with spring onion and pepper, goose fat with burnt bacon bits in it, and a series of ‘Presse’ (various meats pressed into a loaf and held together in gelatin). They were incredible! The wine was also very good. We left the Ratskeller and visited the tourist office. I had a plan in my head of what I would like to do on a two day tour of Munich and that has pretty much remained the same, but it was great to get all of the information in one spot and have get suggestions as to the order, opening times, ticket prices, age restrictions and other things. I won’t go through them all here, but you can contact me on the contact page of this blog and I will be happy to share my more detailed plans with you, if you wish. Here I will just give the outline. I’ve been at the Goethe Institute Mannheim for 2 weeks now. It is a cool place. It runs really well, it is very organized, the teachers (mine at least, that I know) is super attentive the needs and also the wants of the students. The evening activities programme is quite full, interesting and relatively inexpensive. You can see the receptionist in one of the photos. Her name is ‘Bonka’, which I personally think might be the best name in the history of names. Bonka knows all of the students by name (quite a few) and is able to help you with whatever you want, and if she can’t she’ll find someone who can. On the first floor there is the ‘Mediatech’, basically a library. The librarian (sorry, I forgot her name) is super helpful also. You can see in the classes that the student:teacher ratio is very good and the classes run 90 minutes, 15 break, 90 minute, 30 break, 45 minutes, which means you start at 8:30 and finish at 1pm. Tip: If you want to eat or have a coffee, there are coffee machines on every floor and in the college next door there is a canteen where you can eat all of the German favourites, plus a revolving daily menu, which is always between 3.2 and 4.2 Euros. The food is good, and above that, very good value for money. You can also buy a drip-filtered coffee there for 1Euro. Last night we lived a cultural experience that I had not expected, Ice Hockey! We went to see Adler Mannheim (Mannheim Eagles) thrash Eisbären Berlin, 6:2. It started pretty amazing, with Adler Mannheim coming onto the ice to AC/DC's Thunderstruck and 12 000 people all chanting their names in unison. There was an amazing support crowd for the Adler, up in the second tier, singing and chanting, with one guy on a kettle drum, like the rhythm keeper on a rowboat, keeping time with the chants and speeding the chants up and down depending in the level of action. Everyone knew the songs, like English football songs, they were old pop songs with the words changed around so that the supported the Adler. Some songs were also sung and the word 'Berlin' was inserted. I didn't really understand the words, but I'm fairly sure that they weren't super polite. The commentator didn't commentate the whole game, but rather just came on like a 20/20 commentator. He announced the substitutions, reasons for stoppages in play, intermittently a statistic (i.e. foul on player x, that's 2 fouls for him) and goals, all in a 'Let's get ready tooo ruuuuummmmble!' kind of tone. What he also did was left off the last word in a sentence if the last word was obvious, say for example someone’s surname or the scoreline or whatever. This is where the crowd came in and shouted it all in unison. So the commentator would yell "Magnificent save by Chet ..." and the whole stadium would scream "Pickhard". What was funny was when the score was commentated it went like this: Commentator "Mannheim", Crowd "6"; Commentator "Berlin", Crowd "0". Every time, the crowd always got the Mannheim score correct and Berlin was always "NULL!". It was incredible, I have never seen anything so fast in my whole life. The puck could travel the 60 metres from one goal to the other, sometimes I would suggest a second, not much more. I also didn't know that ice hockey players can use any part of their body to play. So when the one guys hit the puck in the air, the next guy would catch it, throw it on the ice and start playing it again. Up against the wall they would use the blades of their skates to kick it out if they had to. Mannheim has an especially large following for a German ice hockey team. They have also been incredibly successful, often referred to as the Bayern Munich of ice hockey. They have an impressive array of stuff in their trophy cabinet including, but not limited to 4 titles in 5 years from 1997 – 2001. When the game started this time, Berlin scored fairly quickly and there was a sound like everyone in the stadium had been simultaneously punched in the breadbasket. Mannheim managed to come back at the end of the first third (ice hockey is played in 3 x 20 minute thirds) and tie 1:1. In the second part of the game, the Adlers came out and smacked it in the back of the net in under 9 seconds. It took the crowd a moment or two to realise what had happened and then they went beserk. Berlin scored again at some point to make it 2:2 and Mannheim put one in the net with 6.5 seconds on the clock. They came out in the last third with three unanswered goals and went home with a 6:2 win. Good job all round. Tip: - if you are in Mannheim and want go to the ice hockey, choose your seat carefully; you could end up a long way off the pitch as the stadium is huge. - the public transport to and from the game is included in your ticket, but it doesn’t say it anywhere. It’s just something you are meant to know. - To buy a ticket you need to go to the Quadrant Q6/Q7. There is a massive department store. Go to the first floor and look for a shop called ‘Whistle’. It is a shop dedicated to the Adler Mannheim and that is the only place you can buy tickets apart from online. But go there so the people can explain to you where you will be sitting, because it is not obvious from looking at the plans online, at least it wasn’t to me Schwetzingen is a really pretty little town 'just outside of Mannheim'. I use the quotes because it is 3 stops and a grand total of 11 minutes on the train from Mannheim Hauptbahnhof. Where Mannheim ended and Schwetzingen started was not exactly clear to me, but I can only believe what I'm told. Schwetzingen is famous for Schloß Schwetzingen (Schwetzingen Castle) and the Castle Gardens. Tip: Schwetzingen Castle Gardens are big and beautiful and open all year round, but if you want to go into the castle, you have to go on a Friday afternoon and join a tour. Entry to the grounds is 4 Euro and you can expect to spend a while there. We were there for about an hour an a half and it was 0*c, I can imagine taking longer in warmer weather. The Schwetzingen Castle was built in the early 1700s and is surrounded by a moat, which is quite quaint. The gardens were originally planted in the mid-1800s and are enormous. Even in winter they were very pretty, in spring and summer they must truly be something to behold. In the gardens there is a 'Mosque'. I use quotes again as it is actually a Mosque-style building, built in the 1780s. It has never been used as a mosque and was never intended to be. It was built by a very worldly Prince at the time in order to open the minds of the German people to other cultures, and Der Turkei (Turkey) was the absolute height of fashion in the late 1700s, apparently all the cool monarchs were doin' it. According to the nicest tour guide in the world (who wasn't even meant to be a guide, he just worked there and was keen to tell us about it), after the 2nd World War, the conquering American military set up shop in the castle and the soldiers turned the mosque into a Jazz Club and held the swingingest parties there. BTW, if it happens again just like it did in Speyer, and you have to wait 5 minutes for the next train, straight opposite the Schloß is the Schwetzinger Brauhaus zum Ritter (Schwetzinger Knight's Brewery). Go in there and check out the restaurant. It is downstairs in an old tunnel/wine cellar/air-raid shelter. I've put some photos here, but they really don't do it justice, you need to see it for yourself. (And if you have another spare 5, you could do worse than a 'Wilder Ritter', that's their in-house Pilsener. MWAH! Delish!) Last Sunday evening we went to Speyer. It was very lucky that we did as we caught the last day of one of the loveliest Christmas Markets I've ever been to. Tip: Speyer is the only place in Germany that my resident expert knows of which has a Christmas market until the Epiphany (otherwise known as the Three King's Day, or January 6th). It is 25kms south of Mannheim and home to about 50 000 people. The centre of town is a bit of a walk from the train station, only an easy 10 minute stroll, and the trains go to and from Mannheim very frequently. When you get to the centre of town you are struck by a gorgeous old city centre based around the Speyer Dom (The Speyer Cathedral). Speyer was founded in Roman times and is considered to be one of the oldest cities in Germany. The Speyer Dom is famous for a few reasons. Religious historians would recognise it as the home of the Imperial Diet of Speyer. On April 19, 1529, six princes and representatives of 14 Imperial Free Cities petitioned the Imperial Diet at Speyer against an imperial ban against Martin Luther, as well as the proscription of his works and teachings, and called for the unhindered spread of the evangelical faith. This was unthinkable only 8 years previous in 1521, when at the Diet of Worms (the trial of Martin Luther at a court held in the town of Worms, near Mainz) it was declared that Luther was an outlaw and promoting his teachings to be a crime for which one could quite literally lose one's head. The Speyer Dom still has the basic form it was given in 1033AD and is considered to be one of most beautiful Romanesque churches in the world. In 1981 it was listed as a world-heritage protected site by UNESCO. Entry to the Cathedral is free, but entry to the crypt, where the old emperors are buried is 3.40 Euro and well worth it. There isn't terribly much else in Speyer, but the Cathedral is amazing and well worth the trip. And if you happen to catch yourself with an empty half an hour before the next train runs, then treat yourself to a beer at the Hausbrauerei Domhof (Cathedral Craft Brewery). My resident expert, super-taster extraordinaire and actual, literal, professional beer brewer has officially named the Hausbrauerei Domhof as the Best Craft Brewery in all of Germany. That's right folks, you heard it here first. It was my first ever trip to Mainz last weekend, and that is also quite a cool place. It is about 80km to the north of Mannheim and takes less than 40 minutes on a very pretty and comfortable train ride. Mainz is full to overflowing with old churches and has a very pretty Altstadt (old city centre). Mainz is one of the largest transport hubs in Germany and also Germany's largest wine growing region. If you have ever had a German Riesling, there is a very good chance it came from Mainz or somewhere in the Rhineland Palatinate, of which Mainz is the capital. German whites, especially Rieslings, are amazingly good and relatively inexpensive. It is quite funny when you go out to a pub in Mainz, quite a large proportion of the people have Weißwein-Schorle (white wine spritzer) as their drink of choice. You can have it Süß (sweet, i.e. mixed with lemonade) or Sauer (sour, mixed with soda water). I have to say that sauere Weißwein-Schorle has been a favourite of mine for many years, but I never knew where they came from, and now I do. I didn't have a super-long amount of time in Mainz, but enough to make me think that it would be a very worthy place to bring students. There are the obligatory churches and the Cathedral of Saint Martin (Mainzer Dom), on which construction began in 975AD (that is not a typo, that is 1044 years ago). There is also the Museum of Ancient Seafaring (Museum für Antike Schifffahrt) with the remains of five Roman boats from the late 4th century; The Gutenberg Museum, with one of the original 15th century Gutenberg Bibles; Marktbrunnen, one of the largest fountains in Germany; the Mainz University Botanical Garden and much more. But all in all, the thing I most want to do in Mainz is take a ride on a passenger-ship from Mainz to Koblenz. It takes an afternoon and then you can get the train back to Mainz (or wherever) and travels, what I am reliably informed is, one of the most picturesque waterways in all of Germany. I was only in Mainz for one afternoon, which got dark pretty early as per usual in January, but I am going to go back and do it properly before I leave. I'll keep you posted. (note the red and blue street signs, blue street signs signify that the street runs parallel to the Rhine, red signifies perpendicular. That's so you know which way you are going in the skinny, winding streets of the Aldstadt ) Mannheim is a cool city. It is right on the Rhine and Neckar rivers, it has 320 000 inhabitants, it's right near everything so that you are only a short train ride from almost anywhere and it's big enough to have anything you need. But it is also far enough away and small enough that you don't feel like you are always fighting for personal space. It is a great place. That said, it is the least 'German' place I have been in Germany. Think of anything that you might see on a postcard of Germany and it is not here. There aren't the small winding streets, the old white houses with the brown wood showing through the walls or massive cathedrals towering over the skyline. According to my resident Mannheim expert, that is for 2 reasons. One is because it was 'Zerbomt' in the 2nd world war. I'll leave it to you to figure out the translation on that one. The other is because in the 1800s sometime, the Prince Regent who lived in the big castle he had built for himself (which is now home to Mannheim University) decided that they should organise the place a bit and divided the city centre into a grid pattern and gave all of the squares an alphanumeric code. Take a look at the map. So while it doesn't have the German feel, it is very well organised and super easy to get around. It also has a lot of very well known residents, such as John Deere, Caterpillar, Unilever, Daimler, Siemens, IBM and so on. BASF (just over the river in Ludwigshafen) alone employs 115 000 people and made a profit of 70 Billion Euro last year, that's $120 689 655 172 at today's conversion rate. It was the birthplace of Steffi Graf and Karl Benz, the founder of Daimler AG and the inventor of the modern motor car. Last year, Forbes magazine named Mannheim as the 11th most progressive city in the world. "Mannheim = Leben, im Quadrat" (Mannheim, life squared). Although there is a lot happening in Mannheim, it hasn't struck me as the best place to bring a school group for an extended period, a day trip would be better. It does have a lot of very nice things, but at the end of the day, so does everywhere in Germany. Essentially, if I'm going to be bringing teenagers to Germany for a few short weeks, to live the most German they can in that time ... Mannheim strikes me as a great place to live, work or go to uni ... but it doesn't seem to be built for this purpose.
There Goethe Institute in Mannheim is actually very nice. I say 'actually' because it does everything it possibly can to give you the impression that it won't be. It is hard to find, many of the streets leading to it are blocked because of construction, most of the streets around it don't exist on any paper maps or in any guide books because the whole suburb is still under construction after the removal of the BASF factory. It is very poorly signposted and the surrounding area, as my darling wife so delicately opined, looks more like Pyongyang than Germany. Despite all that, Google Maps and a bit of footwork will get you there. Like so many things, once you have found it the first time, it's easy. It also has excellent public transport connectivity. As time passes, the construction, the signage, the surroundings will all be developed and I'm sure it will be fine. All they will need to do is move the smoking area a few metres away from front doors so that students can get in and out of the building without having an asthma attack.
After all of that, once you are inside the building it is really nice. It is modern, brand new actually, and the people who work at there are super lovely. It has a really well kitted-out Media Centre, a great range of classes (up to C1, which is rare-ish) and a fantastic after-hours activities programme. Tip: get your full programme in advance. I got my dates in advance and the full programme when I got here. Actually the first day is just an 'arrival day', the last is a 'departure day' and there are no classes on either. Also the third-to-last and second-to-last days are exam days. The exam costs 240 Euro and there are no lessons then either. I say all this, because if time is an issue for you, for example if you are coming the the school holidays and you don't want to sit the exam, you can easy shave 4 days off of the plan and not really miss out on anything.
I'm planning to take my students to Heidelberg, but I'm in Mannheim for personal study as I have free accommodation here and Heidelberg doesn't cater to the level of German that I wish to study at. But for all adults who are looking to come to study in Germany, the Goethe Institute is great, the classes are small, the teachers are fantastic, there are so many good, reasonably-priced restaurants and there are so many wineries and craft breweries within 20 minutes of Mannheim on the train that it is impossible to visit them all. But if you are coming with students, honestly, you'd best look somewhere else to cater to their needs. I'll let you know how Heidelberg goes next week. On New Year's Day, after finding the Goethe Institute, I went about setting myself up for the month. Tip number one, take a very good look around the Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) site (www.bahn.de) or even better, find a German who uses the Bahn a lot and can help you find what you need. Deutsche Bahn is, on face value, very expensive. But this is only if you purchase tickets one-by-one at the station at the time of departure. There are myriad ways to make rail travel in Germany super-affordable.
- The easiest way to save cash is to book the tickets online. There is a standard price for every trip, but on certain days and at certain times of day when the Bahn is less busy, you can get some pretty hefty discounts just by being flexible about when you travel. Tip: traveling in the middle of the day seems to be cheap, before and after work hours, not so much. - I have a 15-day Pass. That means I can travel any distance on any train in Germany for free for 15 days within a single month. It's expensive (500 euro) but if you are going to do a lot of traveling, or any considerable distances it pays for itself quite quickly. - The S-Bahn is amazing. If you are traveling as a group you can purchase a Group Day-Ticket. These are ridiculously cheap and the more people you have, the cheaper they are. The S-bahn trains generally stop at most stations, so if you are going long distances you need to plan ahead as it can take a while. If you happen to be travelling on a weekend, 35 Euro will get you a Weekend Pass. With this you can travel on any S-Bahn in Germany for 48 hours, and it is valid for 5 people. Again, it's not the quickest, but if you are on a budget or otherwise just don't care, it is incredible value for money. - The other one I'd highly recommend is the "Probe 50". For 79 Euro you can buy the 'Probe 50' and then you get any ticket you buy for the next 3 months at half price. A return ticket to Munich from Mannheim is 184 Euro, with the Probe 50 it is 92 Euro. Plus the 79 it cost to buy = 171 Euro. It pays for itself in one decent sized trip. (Warning, this card automatically renews after 3 months. So if you do not want to pay for it again, make sure you tell the cashier when you buy it to opt-out of the automatic renewal process. You need to fill in an opt-out form and sign it). There are so many ways to save money with the Deutsche Bahn that it is actually quite complicated to figure out which one is the best for you. If you are travelling with a bunch of students, S-bahn, group tickets, all day, every day. But after that my best tip is that you find a German friend, buy them a reasonable quality Hefeweizen and ask them to help. I also got myself a local SIM card here in Mannheim. It is much simpler than trying to negotiate the overseas roaming charges of your Australian provider. I paid 20 Euro for unlimited calls and texts within Germany and 5GB of data, valid for 30 days, then you renew it online. It has a 5 Euro set-up fee including the SIM. Just look for the 'Lyca Mobile' anywhere. If you are in Mannheim, there is a nice Eritrean bloke who has a store across from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in between the Subway and the Dönner shop. Just look for this sign. He speaks both German and English quite fluently, and I assume also Amharic if that's your jam.
I arrived in Germany on New Year's Eve (Sylvester, as it's known here). I was dead tired from the 24 hour flight and was actually extremely relieved that no-one was here to meet me, as that meant I could just wander off to bed for a bit. As it turned out I fell dead asleep at 5:30pm and woke up to the sound of fireworks at about 11pm. Fireworks sounds constantly blasted through the window until about 2am, at which point they became sporadic until about 4.
Germany and the Germans have an idiosyncratic tradition on New Year's Eve. Every year, on almost every television station in the country, Germans watch a comedy called 'Dinner for One' (See it here on YouTube). It's odd for a number of reasons; it is in English for a start, it's not got anything to do with New Year's, almost everyone watches it every year, and it just gets funnier every time you see it. For decades it has also been screened on Austrian and Swiss TV (also on New Year's Eve) and in the last few years it has been screened throughout Scandinavia and in parts of Asia and Oceania. It has become the most repeated show in the history of television. But the all-time weirdest thing about Dinner for One is that, despite it being an English production (although filmed in Germany), starring quite famous English comedians, it was screened in England for the very first time just this New Year's Eve. Barely anyone in England has ever heard of it. Krass! (as the Germans might say). Anyway, I woke up quite early on New Year's Day and everything was silent. I waited for the sun to come up and decided to find the Goethe Institute and do a practice run, see how long it would take to walk there from home. This is what I found ... it's lucky it's not my first time in Germany or I would have really wondered what I had gotten myself in for. Even as a reasonably experienced traveler I found it quite unnerving. My suggestion for NYE in Germany, forget the jetlag, join in the party, watch Dinner for One and sleep in like everyone else. |
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